Many of you have already picked up on the story broken by the Harvard Crimson on Sunday. It appears VERY likely that young author Kaavya Viswanathan is a cheat. Her newly released novel, part of a lucrative two-book deal, has several passages that are almost identical to a 2001 novel that examined similar adolescent themes:
A recently-published novel by Harvard undergraduate Kaavya Viswanathan ’08, “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,” contains several passages that are strikingly similar to two books by Megan F. McCafferty–the 2001 novel “Sloppy Firsts” and the 2003 novel “Second Helpings.”
At one point, “Opal Mehta” contains a 14-word passage that appears verbatim in McCafferty’s book “Sloppy Firsts.”
Reached on her cell phone Saturday night, Viswanathan said, “No comment. I have no idea what you are talking about.”
McCafferty, the author of three novels and a former editor at the magazine Cosmopolitan, wrote in an e-mail to The Crimson Saturday night: “I’m already aware of this situation, and so is my publisher…” [Link]
Normally I would be skeptical until I heard more about this, but the Crimson has just broken it down to the point where you know how this is all going to end. Her literary career is over. If I were her I would think about falling back on medical school or something real quick. I was thrilled to see a teenage girl that could still write and didn’t use “u” instead of “you,” or “r” instead of “are.” My hopes for the next generation are now completely dashed. Here are just two of the numerous examples of apparent plagiarism cited by the Crimson:
From page 217 of McCafferty’s first novel: “But then he tapped me on the shoulder, and said something so random that I was afraid he was back on the junk.”
From page 142 of Viswanathan’s novel: “…he tapped me on the shoulder and said something so random I worried that he needed more expert counseling than I could provide…”From page 237 of McCafferty’s first novel: “Finally, four major department stores and 170 specialty shops later, we were done.”
From page 51 of Viswanathan’s novel: “Five department stores, and 170 specialty shops later, I was sick of listening to her hum along to Alicia Keys……” [Link]
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Reading the Crimson article inspired me to do some investigative blogging of my own and has led me to a fantastic discovery which I would like to reveal first to SM readers (an then later to the world press). Aided by SM staff I have found striking similarities between the novel “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,” and the 1982 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. For example, if you take the name of the main character, “Opal Mehta,” and you rearrange the letters, it gives you the following phrase:
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p>I think somewhere in Holy Blood, Holy Grail they mention that “a pale moth” is one of the symbols associated with the female divinity, a symbol that was suppressed in the 6th century by the papacy. On a previous post we all wondered why the title character would be named “Opal Mehta” of all things. It makes sense to me now.
Furthermore, I have reason to believe that Kaavya Viswanathan may not even be her real name. Rearranging the letters in her name gives you:
Roughly translated this seems to mean that Satan stays away from wherever the Ankh is displayed (the ankh being an ancient symbol that some believe is the precursor to the Christian cross). This again is a theme that Baigent and Leigh discuss in their non-fiction book. Before the Harvard Crimson article I would have just thought that “maybe this is all a coincidence,” and this really is just a book about a teenage girl that she created from her imagination. I am sure that you all agree in light of the evidence that I have just laid out that this is highly unlikely. This girl simply has no conscience.
See related posts: How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and…, The narcissist principle
great stuff, pooja. keep it coming. quite fascinating, really.
DQ – I think WhoseGod has it right. And I don’t think I’m being let off easy: as you and he have both said (and I now agree), I shouldn’t have started a sentence with “Take it from a caucasian guy…”
If you get the feeling that my “whole tone is very much that of a white knight riding in to shed light for the ignorant,” I do apologize; that was not my intent. I think my tone comes from the other bulletin boards I frequent; oftentimes, a poster gives his opinion as though it were inarguable and empirical fact… although it’s just an opinion. I’m guilty of that in my initial post. Sorry.
And my apologies to anyone else I may have offended; I see now that my first post could easily be read as semi-racist or reverse-discriminatory or both.
Pooja, Thank you for all the links and insight you’ve been providing. This has for the most part being news to me and comes as a huge shock. I have been having sidebar conversations with other friends about this same topic. One of them is a ghost writer and pretty much confirmed the concept of ‘reaching for the same mediocre thought process’ that is in the article. It’s amazing but sometimes there is only one way of saying something. I just can’t imagine that if there were plagiarized sentences in this book they weren’t weeded out by some program a long time ago.
MarkD:
No worries.
Now that you’ve pissed a bunch of people off and apologized, it seems to me you’ve completed the necessary sepia mutiny initiation process. Welcome…
Mark D, although you’ve rightfully apologized (thankyou), you still haven’t answered the question poted in a previous comment I’m still curious about this. Even if you choose not to publicly respond, you should probably think about why you made that assumption (that we would defend someone on the basis of ethnicity).
Siddharta, JoaT,
Glad you are enjoying the links/articles as much as I am. I am such a publishing geek, having working in the business and now on the other side of the table as a writer. The best book biz blog is probably GalleyCat. The best book biz newsletter is, IMO, Publishers Marketplace.
P.
MarkD: Like a dwarf on the shoulders of giants you see farther than them. You have nothing to apologize for. You have provided me (and millions others I’m sure) with The Next Great American catchphrase. Sadly I will have to now retire, “Seacrest, Out!”. I was seeing signs it was played out anyway. I intend to remix it tho’. I can see it now… my glorious tanned self interrupting a bevy of lovelies in a dark downtown bar, “Ladies, let me weigh in from The Caucasian Nation..”
I saw the story on the TODAY show yesterday morning, and I was intrigued (as someone who wants to be published himself someday). I did a Google search at work to learn more, and found the Harvard Crimson article, along with their 13 examples of Viswanathan’s alleged plagiarism. Still hungry for more info (I get easily obsessed with subjects that interest me), I clicked on another link from Google, and was bounced here. It could’ve been any bulletin board or blog; the fact that it was one frequented by desis was coincidental.
I honestly just wanted to see some discussion about the matter. Perhaps I was expecting others to be equally appalled by the plagiarism, but not because it was committed by a desi, or an 18 year-old, or a woman – but just because it happened, and the plagiarism seems so blatant!
Sorry for everything. I’ll leave your beloved board now. (“Hooray,” they say.)
Word! This is the discussion I want to have – about the publishing industry. Would any of the Head Mutineers be willing to write a post about this subject so we can concentrate on it over there? Vinod, Ayn Rand (naively) believed that in a capitalist society the creators would be compensated according to the worth of their creations, and that “second-handers,” those who appropriate the creations of others, would be phased out. Obviously we don’t see that happening in the publishing industry. Want to comment?
MarkD, read my comments #2 and 3. I’m in agreement.
No need to leave. But why “I’ll leave your beloved board” vs. “I’ll leave your board?”
Lavanya, that might be the funniest thing I’ve read all year!
Well, one more post before I go… just to answer a direct question.
I couldn’t for the life of me understand how ANYONE could defend what she did. To me, it was so obviously a case of outright plagiarism that I couldn’t see how anyone could believe otherwise. When I saw so many people defending her actions here, I wondered why (“How can so many defend what she did?”)
One of the conclusions I jumped to was: perhaps they’re defending her because they too are desi. Racist, perhaps, but there it is. Remember, if it helps, that O.J. was acquitted because he had an all-black jury.
I’ve dug myself into another hole, haven’t I? Maybe I am a “stupid jerk” and a “jackass.”
Be well, MarkD
MarkD,
It’s all quite simple. You’re white and this is obviously important to you (“take it from a caucasian guy…”). And you made the error of thinking that, since you consider yourself fairly open-minded, you could just coast in here and say whatever. Well, you were wrong.
This is called Sepia Mutiny. Are you mutinous? Because we are. That’s why we exist. Opinions vary extremely widely on this blog, but almost everyone has in common the fact that they are mutinous.
Now, you’re probably asking yourself, “Am I mutinous? What the fuck does that mean?” And that’s just it, “caucasian guy.” If you gotta ask, you’re not yet ready for primetime with brownkind.
Check yo’self.
Guys lets give MarkD a break. This is what I’ve been talking about the whole time. At least he tried to stand up and admit his error (unlike KV). Let’s show some compassion and move on please rather than harping on it.
Racist, yes, and no, the O.J. example doesn’t help: yes, to some degree or other they may have felt there was reasonable doubt because of their race, but you are overlooking the innumerable times that groups of white people give a white person what may seem unreasonable benefit of the doubt because of race (or common ethnicity). Those occasions may not be as visible to you as they are to some of us.
In other words, everyone, including white people, does it.
Nope 🙂
Deepa asks: >>Vinod, Ayn Rand (naively) believed that in a capitalist society the creators would be compensated according to the worth of their creations, and that “second-handers,” those who appropriate the creations of others, would be phased out. Obviously we don’t see that happening in the publishing industry.
I know you asked Vinod, but it does not matter – we Libertarians are all the same!!
The correct statement is: In a capitalist society the creators would be compensated according to the worth of their creations, and that “second-handers,” those who appropriate the creations of others, would eventually be phased out.
The market needs some time to react, the length of time being directly proportional to the complexity of the creation.
M. Nam
MarkD,
I think it’s fair to say that there are may be lots of reasons why O.J. was acquitted — not least of which being that he had the most expensive legal talent this side of Scooter Libby’s legal team. For you to reduce it to an “all-black” jury is more than a bit facile. There are plenty of less privileged black defendants who get convicted by all-black juries — every day of the week, all over the country. But that’s a different hole for you to dig yourself into on a different blog — try this one if you’re a glutton for punishment.
Farewell.
Deepa, what do you want to know?
That’s probably why Mark projected this assumption from his own experience. Just a guess. It could be embarassing to admit, but he should give it a serious thought.
Agreed. I appreciated his gesture. But I may not be able to forgive you for your Milli Vanilli admission – You’ve permanently messed with my romantic notions of the essence of Abhi! 😉
On a last note, it’s funny how we defend that we’re not “haters”, and now we’re trying to defend that we’re not ‘lovers” either!!!
MarkD,
Uh huh, and white juries for centuries refused to convict white men charged with murdering black men, raping black women and beating black children. White governments imprisoned, robbed, refused rights, denied basic services and systematically exploited non-white minorities, and all of this behaviour was upheld by most white journalists, white judges, white mayors, white citizens.
The examples you refer to (O.J. and ‘desis defending Kaavya’), coupled with your ‘Take it from a caucasian guy’ remark, indicate that you think white people are somehow more neutral and unbiased in their judgments. That indeed is racist.
Well, I was trying to provoke him to issue a separate post so we could discuss the market issue in peace (and people wouldn’t confuse that discussion with an attempt to deflect blame from Kaavya). 🙂 That discussion would include both capitalism’s interaction with the “creative” industries as well as the specifics on the publishing industry which Pooja has been kindly providing in various comments above.
But this development in the publishing industry seems to be an evolution, not part of a phasing-out process. I suppose, to put it in Objectivist terms, the Jim Taggarts are proliferating and prospering freely…
Hee, I know! 😀
It’s amazing but sometimes there is only one way of saying something.
Try being a freelancer writer–you have to find ways of rewording yourself 🙂
Word up, sister. And why is this even in the past tense?
It wasn’t all that long ago that Dick Cheney called Nelson Mandela a terrorist. And there is definitely a subtext of white privilege/ brown servitude to the current American misadventure in the Middle East.
Well, “Pooja” has been providing us with links explaining the roles of packaging companies like Alloy/17th St, which are very interesting – although of course such companies/syndicates have been around for a while (Hello, Nancy Drew, anyone?).
I guess me and probably others are rather naive about the factors other than merit which influence who gets a book deal and how much…and how the perceived marketability of the author’s persona can affect the numbers attached to a book deal…and how widespread packaging and the resulting plagiarism or repetition of specific text is…what about the Harry Potter phenomenon? Much is made of J.K. Rowling plotting out and writing as an impoverished single mother. Did she work with a packaging company (although it is never mentioned that she did)? What factors influenced the size of the first printing in Britain? In the US? Did the perception that her persona might be particularly marketable influence her initial book deals? (Yes, kids don’t care, but parents are the ones who buy the books for their kids). I know way back there was a suit pertaining to “Larry Potter” and “Muggles” that seems to have just faded away quickly.
And as a desi kid, please tell me Enid Blyton wrote all her stuff with no help! PLEASE!
I am just getting a sense that the presence of plagiarized/cannibalized material in a book is not as uncommon as we think, and that if we ignore that possibility, we get all upset over Kaavya and then go back to mindlessly assuming that we are most of the time getting creative works which are actually created by the person they are attributed to, when that may not be true. And I’d like to get more perspective on this idea.
Another writer for the same packager has written an article for Slate about his interactions with them. The beginning:
TV is packaged. Movies are packaged. Music is packaged. Magazines, video games, broadway plays,
It would be a terrible shock if books were somehow an exception. The problem is that we want to have our cake and eat it too. We want to belive in the myth of the solitary creator of genius, and yet we want to be entertained with material that does nothing to bring us face to face with deeper issues. We are happy to even have holocaust movies that prettify the surface of things, with a stirring soundtrack, and a semi-happy ending. So that we come out of the movie theater thinking we know something about life or death or atrocity.
American culture is irreedeemably shallow. Kaavya is only a little lip blister in the AIDS that ravages the body politic (crazy metaphor, but you get my drift). We’re knee-deep in this bullshit. Plagiarism is just the tip of the shitpile.
EXACTLY.
I think someone did refer to this possibility earlier (jealous ghostwriter minion inserts borrowed passages, thus saving herself some work as well).
That’s a silly ad-hominem comment, the kind that racists use against immigrant Indians all the time. I live in America precisely because it is the society I’m interested in helping improve.
There is something wrong with it. It also happens to be an accurate description of life as we know it here and now. Try to hold the two thoughts in your head at once if you can.
Er, I see you’ve been eating you gloomy-pills today Al-Jibraiq.
Deepa, there’s a lot to talk about in the questions you posed, but first it might be neccessary to sort through the confusion that seems rampant on these threads about Publishing.
The author, agent, packaging company and publisher are seperate, distinct, entities. And the editor, though the publisher’s representative, is also the author’s representative within the publishing house, since all editors fight to grab the finite publishing resources available for their author(s).
Please know that this ‘packaging company’ business seems, afaik, to be limited to the YA serialized market. Ever wonder how there seemed to be a new Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys book every year for the past 50 years? It’s in the book somewhere, (or should be) that the book is based on the characters creater by the original author. For books like that, the author’s estate (which generally holds the copyright after the author passes away) or the author him/herself will ok the publisher to hire ghostwriters to do the job.
17th Street production appears to be a slicker, newer sort of animal, capitalizing on the Potter aftermath – kid/teen books that adults also read. That this is happening with young, new authors is rather surprising. And, believe me, relatively rare compared to the sheer volume of books that are published every year.
Before you start rending your garments about how your favorite author was really a manufactured, market-tested, product, please know that the the bulk of all books published are authors writing their own words and published with minimal interference and packaging. ‘Packaged’ genres (and again, this is the exception, not the rule, even in these genres) are more likely to be cookbooks, self-help, business, etc., never ‘literature.’ All your favorite (non-genre) authors wrote every single word, I promise!
Part of the sturm und durang surround this KV case is that this is NOT how it normally works. Half a million to a new author who has never published anything?!! Young authors who DO get that kind of money usually have a story in the New Yorkers Debut Fiction issue, or are praised in Granta, or have every teacher at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop raving about them…something that sparks interest, the belief that the book will be good and do well.
Imagine a industry where every single ‘product’ is different. There is no way to know which book will sell well, no way to know if the advance will ever be recouped, if the costs (publisher’s by the way, never the authors) of paper(high and rising), printing (not cheap), good editors, marketing, publicity, advertising, free review copies, etc. will ever be made back even enough to break even.
Publishers can be foolish enough to fall for the excitement stirred up by a good agent, the competitiveness of a bidding war, and/or blind faith in the writer.
I haven’t worked on these books personally, but asfaik, it’s all true. Again, packaging companies seem to be used for serialized YA books, not originals (at least before 17th street came into play) which is why the KV situation is so weird. Potter is all original, in so far as people still (unjustly, I think) accuse Rowling of ripping off previous SF/fantasy/magic authors to create an amalgamation of their work.
I have no idea what affects the size of a 1st printing in Britian. In the US, it’s mostly guesswork to be honest. An educated guess based on how author’s previous novels did, what the market will bear, whether lates reviews are postive etc.
How quickly we forget: Rowling was rejected by a whole string of publishers before her UK publisher took a chance on her. Her persona had nothing to do with the book at all until it became a stealth success. Then her backstory came out and people were even more taken with her/the books.
Um, since I wasn’t there, I don’t know. The industry used to be qutie genteel back in the Enid Blyton days, and still clings to that facade even though being boughtout by meg-corporations has meant needing to manage a bottom line as well. (That’s why there are so many junk books out there! The Dr. Phils and the crappy thrillers and chick-lit inanities…THEY SELL. If you, the book-buying audience stops buying those damn books and instead buys more than 5,000 copies of the next Hari Kunzru we’d see a whole raft of fine books being published. As it is, profits from Dr. Phil or the Who Moved My Cheese or the Purpose Driven Life subsidize most of your favorite literary authors.)
Anyway, back to Enid Blyton. if it’s any consolation, I think she wrote all her books. Pretty distinctive style.. from the famous five to the secret seven. But know that there were books written after the TV series came out that are ‘based on the characters created by..’ and those, my dear, were not.
I’ve really barely touched this topic. SAWCC’s having a panel on the business of writing, at the mixed Media South Asian Literary Festival 5/19-21 (plug: I’ll be there) so come if you’re interested.
AJ,
Ok – sorry. Knee-jerk reaction on my part.
Mmmm… I’ve said it to indian-immigrants, including some of my close relatives, who keep harping about how great India was when they were growing up and how they could walk into anybody’s house for dinner without having to call them first etc etc. My point is: If there’s a better place, it’s better to move there than to whine about the current place.
Care to explain further in economic terms?
Ok – now this is a silly ad-hominem comment.
M. Nam
Helpful stuff, Publishing Lifer. Thanks. I think it clears the air on a lot of things. And, heh heh, yes, I’m on a full-diet of gloom. I occasionally supplement it with doom, but not all the time. 🙂
M. Nam, you pissed me off, that’s why I sort of lashed out. I take the comment back.
I do think there’s much more to wrong and right than economic reasons. It might be scandalous to say so, but there it is. Slavery was economically viable for white Southerners, and the Raj was economically viable for the Brits. I don’t worship this “Market God,” never have, never will. Our lives are bigger than that.
Peace.
Publishing Lifer, thank you so much for your very long and helpful explanation. I hope you will stay in this discussion. Is the SAWCC panel in New York? If so, damn, because I live in LA, but do post it in the “Events” tab of whatever city it’s in so other people will see it.
Publishing Lifer, Is that the Montreal SAWCC you’re referring to?
It’s on the events tab. Yes, it’s in NYC, but for more information, visit http://www.sawcc.org/mixed.html.
Fox news of all people (gasp) echo exactly what I’ve been saying:
Hell yeah!
yeah, but it’s like the opposite– i don’t think we’ve heard “the best” from kaavya. she lead with her worst. asslee started with a nicely-engineered tape and then, when she was “on her own”, she fucked up and sounded…well, like ass. we still haven’t read kaavya yet, whether b/c her original novel was too dark to be marketable OR b/c her packaging company rendered it pathetic.
who cares, there’s a more pressing issue at hand:
abhi and F-OX, sittin’ in a tree… k-i-s-s-i-n-g… first comes lowe, then comes a huge shaadi then comes 3V in the stokke explory.
What if this was a set-up? What if there is someone/group out there which has a personal/family vendetta, and this is how they got her/her family, who were blindsided by the fame/money?
I suppose anything is possible but if this were the actual circumstance, I think Little, Brown & Company would’ve stomached the embarrassment of having a traitor in the ranks and cried foul to recoup reputation and money; it seems more likely that someone did a shotgun-edit and filled in the blanks with McCafferty’s words or Viswanathan is guilty of taking the passages, intentionally or unintentionally…
Whatever the case, there’s some serious sabre-rattling going on at Crown and a number of media sources (oh, Fox, how we love thee), are calling into question the sincerity of her recent apology/statement by citing an earlier interview in which she told a reporter that “nothing I read gave me inspiration.”
The dogs are out, things are getting bloody and the only side loving it is Dreamworks–optioning “Opal Mehta…” was smart but securing rights to the story-behind-the-story (let’s call it “Pinching the Girl,” for now), is $$$.
I live in Cambridge … Harvard should expel this girl!
Thank you for your thoughtful contribution. It’s wonderful to have the perspective of someone in the same zip code.
All it means to me that there are a lot of suckers out there. There is no such thing as bad publicity in sho biz. And make no mistake, publishing is part of entertainment business. Marketing works. More power to the marketers.
The Harvard Independant interviews Lizzie Skurnick, “a former editor at 17th Street.” This article was posted on this or the other Kaavya post, I believe.
BUT. Dear Lizzie writes back about that article in her own blog, claiming that she was quoted out of context:
Definitely worth reading.
fantastic link, cicatrix. 🙂
The Kaavya effect : http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=sm6widget&r=12
Definition : “When your site-visits and page-views increase to 125% of the previous-30-day-maximum”
Is that a greenlight to open up a discussion of Gen Y and the Generation Of IM-Grammar? Having worked with “these kids today” I have to say it’s definitely a recurring theme. That and the utter inability to spell out the entire word “because”…
Watch yourself DesiDancer. Gen-IM gets offended at that. Just read the comments here: http://harvardindependent.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=9906
all hail kaavya for a few days of very entertaining drama. i will admit, i am addicted to reading about your craptastic debacle! the hoopla around your thievery has provided me hours of eye-rolling and “ohmygawds” and good laughs. i most likely will never read a word that you write (or unintentionally plagiarize) but i will always read ABOUT you and get some good laughs! thank you!
—crazy-comment-reader-not-looking-for-an-epiphany-or-moral-to-the-story-but-just-here-for-the-shits-and-giggles
Guys, I just had the most ingenious idea ever! There is only one proven way for KV to improve her tarnished reputation and win back our fickle hearts. We should all petition to have her appear on the next season of The Surreal Life. Can I get a hell yeah??
hell yeah!